URLs

I admit it; I've been roaming around the web a bit looking for a break from the real news. I've been a news junkie since about the age of 4 and yet even I get overwhelmed by the things which are going on today--and by how shallow and unbalanced the coverage here is in the US, but that's another story I am looking for a way to put completely out of my mind right now. I'm just a few pain levels short of a migraine at the moment...and really don't want to tip the scales towards mortal agony.

So, some diversions...

How Not To Make Love Like A Porn Star is a shout-out to some men out there: men who, I gather, have been watching too much video and not enough real life...

I had to look up one of the words in the above article; I'm getting old, or too old-fashioned, or too isolated, or too depressed, or too neglected by the world, or too sheltered, or too lazy, or SOMETHING -- and way out of touch with the zeitgeist, here!

Then I checked out some Linda Franklin, who has embraced the term "cougar" even as some have found it to be insulting.

I personally was somehow imprinted in childhood with some sort of Flower Child view of the world which is so out of date as to be difficult to describe. I don't believe in ageism, sexism, thisism, thatism... (now the John Lennon song is running through my head) and I don't see people as how old they are or as an amount of money they make or property they own and in fact I do have trouble describing what people I know actually look like, since looks really don't matter to me. No, I'm not "on drugs." Scarier, I'm just naturally this way! And so "the 80s" were very hard on me, but I'm not going into that now.

Ok. So. Do Women Ask For Raises Less Often Than Men?

Does Ralph Lauren want female models...or possibly adolescent male models with fake breasts instead...or perhaps he could just hang his clothing on a long, thin metal pole...

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I can't help respecting Barbara Ehrenreich, even though many of the ideas I've had for books that were trapped in my head (while my sick body refused to let me write them) ended up showing up one day, on best seller's lists with her name on them...and undoubtedly far better researched and written than I could have ever done :)

Instead of continuing to find this annoying or depressing, I'm now deliberately trying to send her more thought waves! Someone needs to write these important things! Maybe if I concentrate while meditating on a crystal... It doesn't appear I'm going to get much done with my life other than learn an awful lot about improvements that really need to be made to medical office waiting rooms, so in all seriousness, I hope a lot of the books I envision do get written someday, by somebody.

Of BE's current offerings, I really felt this article of hers is worth a read, and I'm very much looking forward to a copy of her book about positive thinking not necessarily being the magical cure-all for absolutely everything. I'm certainly tired of people telling me that if I thought positively enough I would not have health problems. In a way, that's trying to give me a guilt trip...and that's not very positive, now, is it?! So there! Of course, "positive thinking" is a lot cheaper than the treatments which have actually been working for me, and there's the incentive for the tax-haters or whomever else is on my case about my medical costs to try and get me to feel like all I had to do all of these years was to smile, smile, smile! :)

(I DO smile a lot. I've actually been asked to smile LESS. Which just shows you can't ever please 'em all and don't waste your time trying.)

Anyway. Lastly. Judith Warner also had some great things to say on the happiness thing.

AND
Roman Polanski still gives me the creeps. Truly. Ugh. Yes, I heard "The Pianist" was a great movie, but I'm sure the movie didn't depict any of this. It shouldn't be Roman's get-out-of-jail-free card.